


Shrapnel

by Cake and Pi (Tarrin)



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Blood, F/M, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 17:05:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4027927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarrin/pseuds/Cake%20and%20Pi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was being sensible. It was Wally who wasn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shrapnel

The mission parameters were routine: gather intel, see what the criminals were moving, and get out. They were under no circumstances to reveal themselves or engage the criminals. Anyone with their training ought to be able to do accomplish it with ease. It was as simple as any mission they’d been given - simpler, actually. Which probably explained why it went sour before it even began.

The first problem happened when it turned out that the there were four separate locations being used, all in different states. And each of them, according to their inside source, had a deal going down tonight. So they’d split into teams. M'gann and Conner had one, Robin and Kaldur another, and Rocket and Zatanna a third.

Wally and Artemis had the last.

Of course they’d get the one in the middle of a corn field. There was a small farm, abandoned years ago from the looks of it. All the machinery that had been left behind was rusted and inhabited by enormous spiders and who knew what else.

Artemis successfully identified what was being moved (military grade weaponry, from the look of it), Wally got a little too close and was subsequently spotted, and they had to fight their way out of a grain silo of all things. All in all, an average mission.

And then it really went south.

There was a bomb.

They both saw it at the same time, the goons mysteriously clearing out all at once. Artemis’s heart leapt into her throat as Wally ran up to it. In almost slow motion, she saw him bend over it, blink, and turn back to her. Then time sped back up, and she felt something slam her to the ground as a roar filled her ears.

When she opened her eyes once more, blinking furiously as grit made her eyes water, she found that the thing that had wrapped around her was Wally. Dirt had turned his red hair a brownish grey. She meant to poke him but a coughing fit took over her. She was breathless when it eased; her head pounded. “KF,” she croaked. His hand patted her back - good, he was still alive.

That hand came up to prod at her head. “Nn?” She asked, trying to keep from setting off another round of coughs. She was mildly successful; she managed to breath through this set.

“Concussion?” Came Wally’s rough voice. Ah. That explained his hand.

“Mild one, I think.” She turned her head; no dizziness, a good sign. Her ears rang though, and felt clogged up too. Which given that they hadn’t had time to really get away… She frowned, trying to think. Had there been multiple bombs? The blast had had an odd sound to it. Almost like grenades had been thrown at them too. “We should get out of here.”

“Yeah.”

She sat up slowly, in case she was concussed worse than she thought. Her head still ached, but she still wasn’t… dizzy… She blinked once, twice, her vision swimming. Then it came back together with clarity. She wished it hadn’t.

“Artemis? You okay?”

“I should be asking you that.”

Wally had tackled her, and they’d landed, mostly, to the side of the door. The walls were still standing and had taken the worst of the blast. But the bomb had been taped to the bottom of a plastic folding table - and they’d only spotted it because the table had been overturned in the fight - and that had not survived.

Bits of plastic were everywhere. Some had embedded themselves in Wally’s legs, which hadn’t cleared the door. On top of that were smaller wounds, in his legs and in the silo’s walls, ones that fit with fragmentation grenades. She gulped at the sight of his legs, a torn up mess of blood and skin and spandex.

“I’m okay.” When she gaped at him in shock. There were shredded and bits of plastic sticking out of his body, and probably bits of military grade shrapnel inside his legs, and he said he was okay? “It’s fine, Artemis. I’ll be fine.” His face had been tucked against her stomach during the blast; it didn’t have a coating of grit like his hair, so she could see the pallor of his skin. Even if she hadn’t, she could hear the false, shaky bravado in his voice.

“Stop that. Don’t play Superman with me.” Artemis growled. She hated it when he pretended to be more okay than he was, when he didn’t tell her what was really going on. She stood carefully, but the world failed to spin.

“I’m not. Art, you’re bleeding.” She frowned at him and looked down. Oh. She must’ve gotten cut in the fight. A long shallow gash ran down her leg, bleeding sluggishly. She’d lost her knife during the fight, but looking around, she could see both her bow and some scattered arrows. And one of the goon’s knifes that they’d lost too.

“Be useful and get Robin or someone on the comms, okay?” She asked as she grabbed the knife and cut off most of her pants leg. She ripped the torn off fabric into strips and wadded most of it against the wound, using the longest strips to tie down her makeshift bandage.

“No good. Either everyone else is down or mine got busted in the blast.”

She grunted acknowledgement as she she grabbed her bow - in two halves, held together only by the bowstring which had somehow come through the blast unharmed - and handed it to Wally. “Hold this. I’ll carry you.” She didn’t bother trying her own earbud; hers hadn’t even crackled with static on the all-signals blast Wally had tried.

Bending down, she hefted Wally up over her shoulder, his legs hanging down in front of her. She tried to not look at them. She could see where some of the wounds were already healing, nevermind that some of were closing around shrapnel.

“Babe, you shouldn’t be-”

“Shouldn’t be doing this. Fine. I acknowledge this is not a great idea. But unless you have a better one, be quiet, okay?”

For once he did as she said. Artemis carried him, limping, towards the farmhouse. The black, unmarked vans that had been here earlier were nowhere to be seen. She hoped that meant all the goons had cleared out; she wasn’t sure she’d be able to win a fight just now. Wally was protesting less and less whenever she jostled him. That worried her badly. She hoped there was a working phone inside so she could get medical help for him.

The inside of the house was empty. Moonlight filtered in from dirty windows, giving her just enough light to see by, but not enough to keep away creepy shadows. She eventually found what must have been a bedroom; a disassembled bed frame and mattress lay on the floor. She laid Wally on the mattress, trying to leave him both on his side while not putting pressure on his wounds.

He’d passed out on the way here; she wasn’t sure if she was happy about that. The closet proved empty of anything she could make a temporary pillow with. She cursed the farm’s former owners as she pulled her uniform top off and bunched it under Wally’s head. It took a few tries to find the zipper to his uniform, to pull it down and loosen it. Looking around, she didn’t see a phone. A more thorough exploration of the house turned up a landline, but the cord had been cut. Nor was there any running water.

Wally had woken up while she’d reconned the farmhouse. He watched blearily as she sat next to him. “Wassup?” He whispered. Artemis frowned and brushed his hair back from his face. He definitely wasn’t feeling well if he wasn’t even making quips about her going about with a cut-off pants leg and no top but a sports bra.

“Nothing good. No phones, no water, no food.” At least the ringing in her ears had faded.

“Esselen.” His eyes drooped closed. _Excellent_ , she corrected mentally.

“Wally. Hey, you gotta stay with me. Don’t go to sleep.”

He turned his head away from her. “Mm.”

She bit her lip; she hadn’t thought about him being concussed. “Hey!” She shook his shoulder. “Wally!”

“… Mis.”

“Don’t fall asleep on me. You probably have a concussion.”

“M’ goggles…”

“What?”

His head turned back to face her. “Use my goggles.” He repeated. A fine sheen of sweat showed on what skin of his was visible. “See the… the stuff better.”

“What stuff?”

“The crap in my legs. It’ll… You gotta get it out. The real bad ones, at least. I’ll heal around ‘em, otherwise.”

Blood drained from her face. “You’ve got be concussed to suggest that. Wally, that’s for a hospital and a, I dunno, a surgeon to do! With sterile tools and stuff! Not me, in the middle of nowhere, with no training, and nothing but a bowie knife to work with!”

“Leaving it just makes it worse.” His eyes closed again. Her stomach tried to revolt. She swallowed repeatedly, and waited for the buzzing in her head to fade if not leave entirely.

When her hands were steadier, she sliced open the remains of his pants along the back. Pulling them away, she tried to assess the damage. Some places the flying bits of metal had gone straight through; others didn’t have an exit wound. She knew if an artery had been hit he’d already be dead. Beyond that, and that some of the shrapnel had embedded in his butt too, she couldn’t really tell.

“How much worse?”

“Enough that I’m asking.”

Artemis licked her lips and wished she believed in gods or luck or something like that. “Knife’s not even clean.”

“I know.”

* * *

He passed out again when she got to the three inch piece of twisted plastic that had pierced his leg, going in one side and out the other.

* * *

M'gann found them about three hours after the blast.

* * *

Turned out she actually had two knife wounds, just so close together she couldn’t tell through the blood. Artemis started to cross her legs then thought better of it when the stitches she’d gotten pulled tight when she tried. She settled for slouching in the uncomfortable hospital chair instead. In her lap she fiddled with Wally’s goggles; she hadn’t had a chance to return them to him yet. He slept on the bed in front of her. (Zatanna had been on the bioship too, and had magicked Wally’s ruined costume, and Artemis’s, into street clothes before they’d reached the hospital.)

It’d some hours before he had come out of surgery. The wounds had kept healing even as they were opened, making it difficult for everyone. The Flash was here too, as a civilian. He bowed forward in the chair he’d taken, hands gripped tightly together. Artemis hadn’t said anything to him when he had entered the room. Nor he to her, beyond that Wally’s parents were on their way. She’d only nodded.

* * *

She had to return home before he woke up. She wasn’t a relative, after all. But she came back the next day as soon as she could. (Never mind that she was supposed to be writing her mission report.)

Wally was lying on his side, facing her. He had glanced at her when she came in before going back to whatever spot on the wall he was staring at. His fingers fidgeted with the blankets, forming small pleats and then smoothing them, but that was it. Artemis hesitated in the doorway. She’d expected to find him devouring any food he could get his hands on, or fidgeting at being kept to a bed, or even a crude joke about how she’d finally gotten him out of his pants. Not this… this quietness.

An IV ran from the arm at his side; when she checked it her eyebrows rose. “You’re still on painkillers?”

“Mm. Still hurts.”

Artemis wrinkled her nose. She’d known that while Wally healed faster than a lot of people, it wasn’t as quick as it was for his uncle. “Thought you’d’ve healed up by now? Since it was so important for me to do impromptu surgery on your legs?”

“Mm. The smaller ones, yeah. But some of them went pretty deep, and there was so many… It’s taking a while. I’m probably not gonna be walking easily anytime soon.”

“What do you mean?” Had she messed something up, earlier at the farm? Were there been other wounds she hadn’t been aware of? Had the ER docs done something?

“Muscle tissue tears and bunch of stuff I don’t quite remember cause I was still on the extremely nice drugs then.” She snorted amusedly. “I’m not like the Fla- erm, the other one. Bigger stuff takes longer to heal. It’s not like I got a bunch of papercuts. Those’d be gone before they even had time to actually exist.”

“You’re awful.”

He grinned weakly and winked at her. “I know.”

She smiled back and smooth his hair back. The gesture helped her remember she hadn’t given his goggles back. She pulled them out of her pocket and held them out. “Thanks for letting me borrowing them.”

He glanced at her then at the goggles. An odd expression flitted across his face, too quick for her to read. Then he patted the bed for her to sit. The side-rail on the bed was still down, so she leaned one hip on the blankets, careful not to nudge his legs. He sat up, wincing as he did. She started protest, but let it die unsaid. It was no skin off her nose if he was going to insist on causing himself pain.

He took the goggles and then pulled them over her head. The plastic strap pulled and caught at her hair. “Wally, what the hell?”

“Souvenir.” He said. Oh. It was that tradition of his. She rolled her eyes.

“I don’t need a souvenir Wally. And I’ve got that knife if I did decide I wanted oh so happy memories of that mission. These are your goggles, you take them back.” She reached up and pulled them off to shove them at him again. He pressed them back into her hands.

“It’s fine.” He mumbled, avoiding her eyes. “I’m not gonna need them anymore anyway.”

Artemis froze. That strange feeling from right before the bomb had gone off was back, the world turning extra sharp and focused. “What.” She said flatly.

“Artemis, that busted me up pretty bad. Just walking it to the bathroom is torture. I’ll be lucky if I stop limping around like I’m old before classes start. Sittings not too bad, at least.” That Wally could already walk - or had at least tried it - didn’t surprise her. He sighed and dropped his head onto her shoulder. “Been thinking of this for a while, Artemis. Cause of starting college soon, you know?”

She knew. She was going to the same school as him. They were even enrolled in some of the same classes. “It’s only June.” As if that was some sort of logical rebuttal to what he’d said. He nodded.

“It’s a little sooner than I meant, but…” He shrugged as if that explained everything. “It’s one thing for Robin because, well, he’s Robin. And Kaldur’s been through actual military training and shit. But I don’t like being scared all the time. I don’t… I… I keep having dreams, Art.”

Distantly she noted that his hair was brighter now that it wasn’t coated with dirt. Strands of it shifted when she exhaled. “You had nightmares before, from the simulation. You didn’t quit then.”

That was different, though. It had been rough on them all, true, but then, it had been rough on them _all_. They could look at each other and know they weren’t wrong to be affected by it. To still be affected.

But this… This was Conner hiding that after really bad missions he’d confine himself to a closet, or a sleeping bag, or a bathtub for hours. This was Zatanna pretending she didn’t eat her favorite foods anymore because she couldn’t find the right ingredients, not because of her dad’s absence. This was Wally claiming his raids of the fridge at one and two in the morning were from hunger and not because nightmares had him waking up in a cold sweat.

“I just want to put the whole hero thing aside for while. You know? That’s all.”

The air drained out of the room and her head buzzed. It should be impossible to steal all the air from a room when it wasn’t sealed off. That didn’t seem to matter to her lungs.

 _Aside_. For a _while_.

She knew how that went.

He’d leave then.

Leave. Leave her and the team, and he hadn’t even told her before now.

Artemis stood quickly, jostling him off her shoulder. He looked up at her in surprise. Her nails dug into her palms; when she looked later, she’d be surprised she hadn’t broken the skin.

“S-so you’re just gonna turn your back on us? The team?” She corrected. He started to say something but she kept talking.

How dare he.

“Cause it got a little too scary, a little too _real_ , huh?” Memories of crawling through the Cave’s ventilation shafts as two robots counted down to when they’d kill her teammates rose before her. She brushed them aside and barreled onward. “You know, you aren’t the only one with nightmares Wally! But some of us _deal_ with them. Yeah? But not you. No, you’re gonna run away from it all ‘cause that’s _easier_!”

That was unfair. Beyond unfair, and she knew she’d gone too far. Green eyes widened and the muscles on his jaw jumped. Still, she didn’t apologize. This wasn’t fair, he’d decided all on his own, he hadn’t told her, was leaving the team. Leaving her.

Well, she could leave too.

The door slammed as she stormed out.

How _dare_ he.

* * *

There was a formal announcement of Wally’s “indefinite leave” a day later.

Robin kept trying to talk to her about it, about Wally. It took revealing just how much she’d knew about his civilian identity - and threatening to tell Batman just how she’d figured it out - to get him to back off.

That didn’t stop the rest, but at least the rest never followed her home to “talk sense” into her. That was a fruitless, doomed endeavour anyway; she was being sensible. It was Wally that wasn’t.

* * *

M'gann threw a party for Conner’s birthday. Technically it should have been in March, but Conner preferred the day he’d left Cadmus, when he’d first seen the real night sky. Wally attended over video chat, all good humor and smiles. He was still home bound and on crutches, even if he only used them due to parental pressure.

Her teammates actually laughed at his awful jokes. As if they were okay that he’d left them.

Artemis got up and left rather than listen to him.

* * *

Wally visited the Cave in person at the end of July. It made Artemis jump, to hear him announced as an authorized guest, his B-03 designation suspended until he officially returned.

If she’d left once she’d stayed long enough to see he was walking without crutches now, well, what of it? Her combat skills always needed honing. And if at some point he came in and sat, watching her hit bulls-eye after bulls-eye after bulls-eye, she definitely didn’t notice. And she definitely didn’t cut her practice short so he wouldn’t try to talk to her. She had just remembered something else she needed to do, alone and in her room. That was all.

* * *

They’d taken a picture together, the entire team, at the Watchtower on New Year’s. All bunched together, making faces and hugging. They all had a copy. This one was in a frame, hiding the back of it, where she and Wally had written silly notes to each other. Her fingers traced over the two of them; she’d picked him up in a princess carry, an echo from their first kiss a few hours before. He’d reached behind her to give her ‘bunny ears’ for the photo.

The creak of a door brought her back to the present. Artemis hurriedly set down the picture with a clack and turned. Wally stood in the doorway, hair still sopping wet with no… no shirt, and only a small towel… She realized she was staring and spun away from him, face aflame.

“Artemis?” She didn’t reply, unsure of if she trusted her voice to be steady just now. A hand caught her elbow and tugged her to face him. “What are you doing in my room?”

“… Clothes.” She squeaked. She made a valiant, medal-worthy effort to keep her eyes focused on his face.

He frowned in confusion. “What do you need _my_ clothes… Oh.” He let go and backed up, his face reddening. The ceiling suddenly became the most interesting thing she’d ever seen as she turned away again.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll get dressed.”

“Please do.” There were sounds of drawers opening and the rustle of cloth. She determinedly kept her gaze fixed upward; she’d forgotten there was a mirror on the wall she’d turned towards.

“All right, I’m decent.” He’d put on sweatpants and a t-shirt. His face and neck were still a bit flushed. “What’re you doing here?”

“You’re serious about this thing? About putting Kid Flash in the past?”

His face went carefully blank. “Yes. I told you before, it’s not really a forever thing. Just getting my head straight. Is that why you’re here? To ask me that?”

She’d come here with a plan, with words she wanted to say and had planned and thought about. As soon as she opened her mouth, all those words flew out the window in the face of her rising temper.

“Uh, more like is that all you have for _me_?” She retorted, keeping her voice low. Last thing she wanted was for Wally’s parents to hear and ask how she’d gotten inside. “No, no ‘sorry that I couldn’t tell the team in person’ - ‘sorry for keeping secrets from my gi- _team_ ’ or, or…”

He raised an eyebrow, face still bland. Since when had he learned to do that? “You sure you don’t mean you? Cause the team has been really supportive. You’re the only one giving me grief.”

“Grief, is it? I’ll give you _grief_. How about we start where you can’t tell me to fuck off to my face?!” Her voice rose in a shout, and they both winced. There was the sound of Wally’s name, muffled by his closed door.

Wally swore under his breath - something he’d never done before meeting her - and went to the door, shouting some excuse downstairs. Artemis’s cheeks burned. That hadn’t been what she meant to say. Hadn’t been the apology she’d meant to give, that would maybe get Wally to reconsider leaving. That…

“Where did _that_ come from, Art?” His window was still open from where she’d climbed in earlier. She ought to leave through it now. Her view of the window, of her path to safety, of escape from what she’d made herself come here to do, was blocked by Wally stepping close. It’d be easy to shove him out of the way. He didn’t have his guard up, just one well placed hit and she’d be gone and him too winded to follow.

“Artemis?”

Her eyes skittered away from his face, searching for somewhere, anywhere safer to look. Muscles tensed as she waited for a hand to catch her chin and force her to look at him. She hated when people did that; it made her feel like a child. It never came. Instead, hands caught at hers, Wally’s fingers trying to lace into her own.

“Artemis, talk to me. Please?”

She let out a shuddering breath. “Well, you’re leaving the hero business behind. Why shouldn’t, shouldn’t that include-” She couldn’t finish the sentence. “S-since I’m part of that life and all.” She felt ridiculous as she said the words. She knew Wally, knew he wasn’t like that. And yet, he hadn’t told her, hadn’t hinted at it, hadn’t discussed it. He’d just dropped it on her, and then he was gone, just like that.

“You hid it from me.” She muttered churlishly. She risked a look at his face. He was staring at her as if she’d just told him Kaldur had turned traitor. She looked away, throat tight. “You could’ve said you were tired of being with me! You didn’t need to give up the team and doing stupid shit around the cave with Robin, you could’ve just said something to Black Canary and gotten time off missions and, and -”

He pulled her closer to him. She stiffened, hands coming up to push him back. “Art, that’s not it.”

“Stop calling me ‘Art’.”

“Artemis, then.” An arm wrapped over her shoulders, a hand hesitantly smoothed her hair. The smell of soap - she couldn’t place what kind - filled her nose. “That’s not it.” He repeated. “I wasn’t trying to roundabout break up with you. Give me _some_ credit.” A sigh.

“Sorry for not telling you. I didn’t want you to feel like, like you had to leave too, or something.” She stared at her fingers, which, traitors that they were, had curled into his shirt rather than shove him away.

“Yeah, well, good going there.”

“Is that why you yelled at me? Cause you thought I was saying I didn’t want you anymore?”

“It’s happened before!” The words spilled out without her meaning to say them. Artemis felt her face flush, and she cleared her throat. “Um. Not you. O-other people. I’d’ve just, just slowed them down. I mean, I, I know you’ve got other reasons and stuff, but you never said _anything_ about this before, a-and… well, what was I _supposed_ to think?!”

“Art.” She looked up to frown at him. “Artemis. You’ve never slowed me down. Never. I’m pretty sure I run _faster_ because of you. At least, I try harder to.”

Artemis blinked at him. That was something she’d never considered. The hand stroking her hair came down to cup her face. “I would never do that to you, 'Mis. Promise.” A thumb stroked her cheek, and she could’ve sworn she knew every color green his eyes made. Foreheads bumped, and then noses, and her eyes drifted closed. Lips brush hers, and her hands released his shirt to lock around his neck.

The arm around her shoulders tightened, the hand on her cheek moved to the back of her head. She grabbed his head when he pulled away and dragged him back down for another kiss. She’d missed this, the way he kissed, how they fitted together. The warmth of his hands and legs and chest pressed against her body. How it made her feel wanted. His tongue darted out and she opened her mouth to his. Teeth clacked, and Wally’s tongue met hers, swiped at the corner of her mouth. Artemis made a noise at the back of her throat and opened her mouth wider.

The kiss turned greedy, with his fingers digging into her skin and her own twisting in his hair, tugging and pulling him to her. He nipped at her lips, and she bit and sucked back. Artemis didn’t realize they’d moved until she felt his desk at her back. A twist of her hips and she was sitting on it. He pulled away from her, breaking the kiss in a vile, villainous act that should be… His mouth fastened onto her neck and sucked and bit and okay yes he could do that. She freed a hand from his hair and pushed it up his shirt in retaliation.

He’d half taken off her shirt when the door creaked open. Wally jumped back, or tried to - the hand she had firmly wrapped over his shoulders stopped him.

“Wally, we’re gonna watch movies in a - oh, hello Artemis.” Wally’s mother poked her head in. Artemis pressed her lips together and tried to summon a poker face. It was proving difficult. Wally, on the other hand, seemed determined to go with outdoing a tomato for turning red.

“I, uh, this isn’t what you think!” He lifted his hands from her as if that removed all evidence of what they’d been doing. Artemis used the chance to twitch her shirt back into place.

“Are you a mind reader now? She didn’t say what she thought.” Artemis said, forcing herself to breath slowly. Inwardly, she told herself she wasn’t, actually, aggravated at the interruption. That was just the fizzing warmth in her limbs doing the talking, and it didn’t get majority vote.

“It… isn’t what it looks like?”

“It looks like you’re making out with Artemis when no one else knew she was here.” Wally’s mom deadpanned.

“You walked into that one.” Artemis tried not to grin at Wally’s look of dismay. “What sort of movies?”

“Oh, cartoon-y princess stuff. You’re both welcome to join us downstairs. Though if we don’t see you in say, ten minutes, we’ll relocate.”

Artemis nodded as Wally made some sort of half-choked sound. “Sounds fair.”

“Supplies are in the bathroom if you need them.” She gave Wally a stern look before closing the door. Footsteps padded away.

“I.” Wally squeaked at the door.

“She’s not there anymore.”

“Did she just-”

“Yes.”

Wally’s mouth opened and closed like a fish a few times. “I. Um. Not yet?” He gave her a frantic look. “Uh.”

“It’s okay. I’d rather wait too.” Artemis let her head drop onto his chest. She thought she could feel his heart pounding through the rush of her own blood in her ears. She hadn’t heard the footsteps up the stairs, or the knock on the door, too focused on other matters to notice. Her hands trembled a little where they’d dropped into her lap. “We should go downstairs; you’re probably half-starved by now anyway.”

“You’re more important.” Artemis barely heard the words, more rumble in his chest than coherent sounds. She had begun to raise her head for another kiss when the implication filtered through.

“You’d pass up food for me?”

“… Combine?”

She whacked the side of his head, more a caress than the cuff it normally was. “No.” Fingertips trailed down his chin, his neck where she could feel his pulse race, to his chest. Her hand flattened there. “Hey. I, I’m sorry. About what I said in the hospital. You… I know that, that leaving wasn’t easy for you. At all. Even without me being upset about it.” She had more to say, more that should be said, but the words died before they even got to her tongue.

“It’s fine, 'Mis. And I’ll try harder to talk to you, next time. Yeah?” She wanted to say it wasn’t that simple, that he ought to be madder at her. Fights meant shouts and punching walls and breaking things; every instinct said that. Never mind that she’d never seen that from Wally.

She was hovering on saying something more when he caught her hand and kissed her palm. Artemis froze, struggling to keep a grip on her suddenly fragile self control. Maybe they should stay up here after all? No. She wanted to talk with him first about having sex before actually doing it with him. And she was too tempted to ignore that just now. “Come on, or they’ll think we really are staying up here.”

* * *

It turned out Wally’s family was the sort that would not just enthusiastically watch cheesy princess movies, but marathon them.

They’d all gathered in the living room, snacks piled high on the coffee table (with designated items for herself, Wally’s parents, and Iris so they wouldn’t have to fight two speedsters for food). She sat on the floor between his legs, leaning against Wally’s chest, occupied with the all-important duty of holding the popcorn bowl. His hands busied themselves with her hair; he’d first made one big braid, then had taken out her ponytail holder and was now working on giving her as many braids as she’d let him make. His knee bounced against her side in rhythm to whatever song the animated characters were singing.

(It also turned out that both Wally’s dad and Barry liked singing along. And that neither of them couldn’t carry a tune to save a life.)

* * *

It was past three in the morning; his family had long ago called it a night. They’d taken over the couch then, cuddling together, and kept the marathon going. Nevermind that they hadn’t exactly seen most of the last movie, too wrapped up in lazily exploring each other’s mouths. Wally pulled back to bury his face in her hair, now fully turned into tiny braids, most half unraveled since none of them had been bound. She smiled contendedly against his shoulder.

“I noticed you brought your bow with you.” He murmured after a while.

“Yeah. Gotta have protection, yeah? And I don’t mean the kind in the bathroom.” He snorted. “And… well. I’ve been thinking too.”

“About what?”

She twisted a lock of his hair between her fingers, considering her next words.

“Has it helped? Taking a break from the team, I mean?”

He was quiet for a bit. “Some. Hasn’t even been two months though. I’m still a bit messed up, in my head.” He shrugged.

“You think it’d help me, too?”

Wally lifted his head to look at her. “Artemis, what? I left cause of me, not to make -”

Fingers pressed against his mouth to silence him. “I know. But like I said back then, you aren’t the only one with nightmares.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “I still get them, you know.”

“Sure.”

“And it can be kind of boring, not throwing yourself into danger every weekend.”

“Mm.”

“But…”

“But?”

“I mean, some things, always gonna have scars from them. And, and not always where you expect.”

She nodded. “Makes sense. Shrapnel tends to go everywhere.”

“But I think… if you’re not expecting it to fix stuff right away, and not fix everything… then yeah. Sure.”

Artemis tucked her head against his shoulder once more. “Then… if you’ll be there with me… my bow can be your souvenir. Since you didn’t take one from that mission.”

“Art…”

“You gotta promise to keep it in good shape, though. Since you said it was boring.”

She could just about feel his grin, and his hands tightened around her. “Not if you’re there, it won’t be.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a tie-in to [Touch](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3952372/).


End file.
